Exodus from Palestine
The withdrawal of British forces from Palestine began this week. It will be a slow process, complicated by the need to give citrus exports priority in the inadequate rail, port and shipping facilities, and likely on current estimates to result in half our stores (or about too,000 tons) being left behind. The Army, saddled with respon- sibility for a tricky and almost certainly wasteful operation, are understandingly critical of the tempo to which high policy requires them to conform ; but what really matters is that high policy, how- ever inconvenient, should be right, which in this case it almost unquestionably is. We have said what we are going to do and when we are going to do it ; and now it is begining to be done. At Lake Success Russia and America, between whose respective attitudes the connoisseur of irresponsibility can unfortunately find little to choose, continue to haggle about dates and other techni- calities ; and in Palestine itself the Arabs still continue implacably to reject partition as a solution to their destinies. The only certain factor in a situation whose inherent dangers are accen- tuated by nobody knowing where he stands is provided by the British decision to withdraw August 1st. After that date we do not abdicate responsibility for what happens in Palestine ; we share it with our fellow-members of the United Nations.
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